This book, the first history of the Disciples of Christ in Canada, save for four pamphlets and some newspaper sketches noted in the text, is the sectional history of a world Brotherhood of one million, eight hundred and fifty thousand (Y.B. 1945).

      Disciple history, written in the U.S.A., has exhibited mostly the "American" origins, beginning in New England, Western Pennsylvania, N. Carolina, Ohio and Kentucky. Chapters Two and Three follow that lead. Canada has other and earlier sources as well. Our roots derive from the British Isles, where beginners of our way of Dissent and Progress were either formed or varied along the trails of the Glas-Sandeman and Haldane Movements in Scotland and Ireland during the eighteenth century.

      All these eventuated in the Scotch Baptist contribution to Canada, which affected us vastly more than it did "America". (See Chapters Four and Five.) Nothing in Canada about these sources has ever appeared in print, or been noticed privately by the writer, other than the sole reference in David Oliphant's Banner of the Faith, March-April, 1859.

      In the first section of Part Two, (1830-1869), there is recorded our pioneer history, largely in the vocabulary of the times. This is followed by sections two and three, the record to date--something about every church or group that has existed in Canada. In Chapter Eighteen, the list of "Churches of Christ" completes the fellowship of all touched by the Campbellian Reformation.

      The demand for a history was noted first in 1880 and has been often repeated. Nine or ten small pages were currently printed then by David Oliphant, and in 1882-83 Joseph Ash, preacher, wrote twenty-one Reminiscences, covering lightly earlier years in Ontario only. About twenty years ago George H. Stewart and Robert M. Hopkins intimated to me that a History was to be expected, which was practically news. The Canada Conventions of 1933 carried a complete endorsement of this idea, but with no more resulting than happens to complaints about the weather.

      Church records suitable for history from early times are rare. There is a memorial to begin a congregation in Milton, Nova Scotia, in June, 1834; another by Edmund Sheppard at Mapleton, Ontario, in January, 1850. Some records, which I have not seen, are extended in the notes on famous River John, Nova Scotia, about their beginning there on Waterloo day, June, 1815. And there is a unique one-volume record of a Scotch Baptist [XIII] Church, dating from 1820, existing on lot 8, concession 10, Esquesing township, Halton County, Ontario. The pioneers mostly were too busy to make notes or foresee their use.

      Ontario Disciples began printing the Gospel Vindicator in troubled 1837, and its ninth issue ended in March, 1838. David Oliphant, our chief personal publisher, started his Witness of Truth in January 1846, and we have had over a century of Disciple journals, all of which are described in Chapter Fifteen. Without these indispensable records there would have been little save the current recollections of great grand children, of what an ancestor believed and did "away back on the farm". Wherefore, if you are heading for posterity, keep some records. Around the written and printed sources which I have cherished there is twined romance, good fortune, and even a providential tinge seems worthy of recording. For identification's sake, I record here that all my Canadiana Discipliana will be found deposited in the library of Victoria College, Toronto, under the title "The Writings of the Disciples of Christ--Canadian and American Collections--from the inauguration of the Movement by Thomas and Alexander Campbell in 1809." There lies groundwork for more history. It includes our own journals, the complete Millennial Harbinger of the Campbells, and many books of the early American period, making a round total of 200 items from both countries.

      The point of view maintained throughout is that of the writer's journalistic interpretation of the currently held beliefs of his lifetime, beginning with his Scotch and English foreparents. Some of these, with "Disciple" freedom, may be held inconsistent with the ampler scope of some expounder of Church History. A long connection with Disciple periodicals, beginning actively in 1897, has afforded me special opportunities for gathering information. Unintentional research seems to have begun in early youth in my father's attic, where the austere pages of the Millennial Harbinger caused a wondering what this intense and purposeful search for religious truth might mean. The inheritance of most of David Oliphant's volumes and the gift from James W. Barnes, of St. John, N.B. of early and later volumes of The Christian, were stepping stones of thrilling moment. These writings have enabled me to check some memories and traditions--and some local history facts--with these colder treasures in print, which are often the only resource of a dry-as-dust historian. I do not claim to be a 'historian' and would have preferred to call this "A Book About the [XIV] Disciples in Canada"--which at least it is. I record these trifles in the hope that perhaps to eyes later than this generation, they may indicate some hint and hope of authenticity.

      I am deeply indebted to many named in Acknowledgments, and to a hundred whose eyes will never see these pages. Thus, the whole effort, from antiquity to writer (and thence to print), including much which I cannot appropriately state, is an illustration at least, of the well-known Disciple principle of co-operation.

      And so, in deep gratitude to the Giver of all Good, I offer this volume to our Brotherhood--all save its unknown shortcomings--somewhat in the mood of Robert Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra, who sang:

R. B.[XV]      

[DCC xiii-xv]